A driver of the Spanish train which hurtled off the tracks and smashed into a wall, killing at least 80 people, previously boasted of speeding on his Facebook page.

Francisco Jose Garzon, one of the drivers on the train which crashed, leaving up to 141 people injured including one Briton, is reported to have posted a picture on the site of a train speedometer at 125mph last year.

According to reports he also boasted about how fast he was going. The webpage has disappeared after images appeared on Spanish TV and newspaper websites.

Alongside the photo, which was published
in March last year, he wrote: 'What joy it would be to get level with
the police and then go past them making their speed guns go off. Ha
ha!.'

It came after a Spanish court said one of the drivers of the train was being held in custody in hospital.

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Terrifying: A horrifying video has been released of the moment the train hurtled off the tracks near the city of Santiago de Compostela last night

Moment of impact: The train hurtled off the tracks and smashed into a wall, leaving at least 79 people dead and up to 141 were injured

Francisco Jose Garzon (left), one of the drivers on the train which crashed, is reported to have posted a picture on Facebook in March last year of a train speedometer at 125mph (right)

Rescue: A fireman carries a wounded victim from the wreckage of the train crash near Santiago de Compostela

The Supreme Court of the Galicia region, which did not say which driver was being questioned, said: 'The judge has ordered the police to take a statement from the driver,
currently under formal investigation, in the hospital where he is being
held in custody.'

A terrifying video meanwhile has emerged which captured the moment the train crashed.

All eight carriages of the Madrid to Ferrol train derailed near the city of Santiago de Compostela last night.

Dramatic
video footage from a security camera shows the train careering into a
concrete wall as it came off the rails on the bend, before flipping onto its side and hurtling down the railway line with its terrified passengers on board.

Deadly: The train which had 218 passengers and an unspecified number of staff on board at the time of the accident hurtles down the track after falling on to its side

Admission: One of the drivers told railway officials by radio that he took the bend at 190 kilometres (118 miles) per hour in an urban zone with a speed limit of 80 kph, daily El Pais reported

TVE showed footage of what appeared
to be several bodies covered by blankets alongside the tracks next to
the damaged train wagons and rescue workers entering toppled carriages
through broken windows.

The crash happened about an hour
before sunset after the train emerged from a tunnel and derailed on the
curve - sending cars flying off the tracks.

As
casualties were taken to hospitals in Santiago and two other cities in
the region, authorities appealed for people to donate blood.

Removal: A carriage is lifted at the scene of a train crash

Surveying the scene: The crash happened about an hour before sunset after the train emerged from a tunnel and derailed on the curve - sending cars flying off the tracks

Statement: State-owned train operator Renfe said in a statement that 218 passengers and an unspecified number of staff were on board at the time of the accident

Terrifying: A general view of the train crash. The incident happened as Catholic pilgrims converged on Santiago de Compostela to celebrate a festival honouring St James, the disciple of Jesus whose remains are said to rest in a shrine

Investigation: Emergency personnel work through the debris at the scene

Cause: An official inspects the train engine amongst the wreckage of a train crash

Ownership: The train, which belongs to the state-owned Renfe company, was not an AVE high speed train, but it was a relatively luxurious version that uses the same track as Spain's fastest expresses

CYBER CROOKS TARGET CRASH

Cyber crooks attempted to capitalise on the devastating rail disaster by sending out a stream of bogus news emails pertaining to be CNN updates in a scam to steal bank details.

Fraudsters are believed to have targeted millions of people as the death toll rose following the tragedy in Santiago de Compostela.

They launched their campaign just a day after sophisticated criminals attempted to cash in on the birth of the Royal baby.

A 'steady flow' of messages designed to look like emails from CNN have been sent out this week, according to analysts at web security firm Appriver.

In each case, the fraudsters rely on recipients clicking on links in the fake emails which claim to direct them to updates from the American news organisation.

But instead, unwitting readers are lured onto a webpage where their computer can be infected by a virus designed to steal their bank details.

A CNN spokesman said: 'Our security team is currently investigating these latest emails and we will continue to do everything possible to combat attempts to use our brand in this way'.

Neighbours responded to calls from the police to bring blankets and sheets to the scene along with bottles of water.

As darkness fell, generators and emergency lighting were brought in to help the rescue teams.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, president of the region of Galicia, described the scene as 'Dante-esque'.

One
of the passengers, Sergio Prego, said: 'The train travelled very fast
and derailed and turned over on the bend in the track.

'It's a disaster.
I've been very lucky because I'm one of the few to be able to walk out.'

Another
passenger, Ricardo Montero, said: 'When the train reached that bend it
began to flip over, many times, with some carriages ending up on top of
others, leaving many people trapped below.

'We had to get under the
carriages to get out.'

Lidia
Cannon, who previously lived in the city and was visiting for the local
fiesta celebrating St James, said she saw a woman who had lost a foot
as a result of the train crash.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today
programme: 'We heard a big bang, like, we thought it was an air crash, I
thought it was a car crash, other people thought it was a bomb. It was
very, very loud, the noise.'

Ms Cannon said people went to help and told of one man's experience of visiting the crash site.

People living nearby rushed to the scene with bottles of water and blankets

Devastation: At least 80 have died and rescue efforts went on through the night

Carnage: People look down from the rail bridge on the aftermath of a devastating train crash in north west Spain

Injured: A woman is carried from the wreckage of the train on a stretcher as emergency service workers try to rescue survivors

Emergency: Rescue workers carry victims on stretchers away for treatment. More than 70 bodies are reported to have been removed from the wreckage

Two victims with head wounds - one with his arm in a sling - are helped by a rescue worker

WORST SPANISH TRAIN CRASH FOR DECADES

The Spanish train crash is the worst the country has experienced since a terrible three-train accident in a tunnel in Leon province in 1944. Due to heavy censorship at the time, the exact death toll for the Leon disaster has never been established. The official figure was given as 78 dead, but it is thought that as many as 250 may have been killed.

There was another serious accident in Spain 1972 when a Madrid to Cadiz express collided head-on with a local train on the outskirts of Seville in the south west of the country. A total of 77 people died, with more than 100 injured.

The Madrid train bombings of March 2004 produced a death toll of 191- but this was a terrorist outrage and not an accident. There were 10 explosions aboard four commuter trains, with the attacks being directed by an al Qaida-inspired terrorist cell.

The latest incident comes less than two weeks after six people were killed and scores injured in a train crash just south of Paris.

Recent bad train crashes in Europe include one in February 2010 in Buizingen in Belgium which claimed the lives of 18 people, a September 2006 crash of a magnetic levitation train on a test track in the Emsland area of Germany which killed 23 people, and a derailment of a packed train outside the Montenegro capital of Podgorica in January 2006 in which 46 people died.

In Britain, no passenger has been killed in a train accident since 84-year-old Margaret Masson from Glasgow died following the Virgin West Coast Pendolino train derailment at Grayrigg in Cumbria in February 2007.

In terms of deaths, the worst rail crashes in recent times in the UK were outside Paddington in west London in October 1999 when 31 people died in a two-train collision after one of them had gone through a red light, and at Clapham in south London in December 1988 when 35 people were killed in a three-train crash.

Britain's worst peace-time crash was in 1952 at Harrow and Wealdstone in north west London when 112 people died in a three-train disaster.

The worst rail disaster in Britain was at Quintinshill near Gretna Green in Scotland in 1915 during the First World War in a multiple-train smash in which a troop train caught fire, killing more than 220 people.

She said: 'He couldn't cope with it. He said he was there 20 minutes but he took out a man that was asking for his wife and his wife was inside, dead. A boy was looking for his girlfriend and she was inside the train, dead.

'He was taking out people that had mobile phones in their pockets ringing all the time. He couldn't cope with it because policemen and doctors and everyone was crying and he had to leave.

'I saw a woman who had lost one foot. But instead of crying or shouting or whatever because of the pain she was looking very, very serious. They were carrying her away and she had her sight, her eyes, were looking to one point - she was in shock.'

Miguel Morado, journalist at local newspaper La Voz de Galicia said: 'Everything points to inadequate [sic] speed - the train driver who survived the crash, when he was being rescued didn't know that people had died, and admitted going too fast with the train...

'He gave a figure he said he was going at 190 km/h - this is part of a network where the speed limit is 80.

'Although it's clear that it was human error, that the driver made a mistake, there's also the question of the line in that part of the network.Galicia is distant from the centre, it's never been well connected with Madrid... The people who made the decisions were too hasty.'

Officials said they believed the
crash was an accident but declined to offer more details, saying an
investigation was under way into the cause.

Renfe said that it - and track operator Adif - were collaborating with a judge who has been appointed to probe the accident.

Passenger Ricardo Montesco said: ‘It
was going so quickly . . . it seems that on a curve the train started to
twist, and the carriages piled up one on top of the other.

The accident occurred near the station in Santiago de Compostela, 60 miles south of El Ferrol.

The train, which belongs to the
state-owned Renfe company, was not an AVE high speed train, but it was a
relatively luxurious version that uses the same track as Spain's
fastest expresses.

It was Spain's deadliest train
accident in decades.

In 1944, a train travelling from Madrid to Galicia
crashed and killed 78 people. Another accident in 1972 left 77 dead on a
track to south-western Seville, according to Spanish news agency Europa
Press.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia region, visited the site and the main hospital on this morning.

He declared three days of official national mourning for the victims of the disaster

A man covered in dirt and blood is stretchered away

Horror: A woman is evacuated by emergency workers

A passenger with a head wound is helped by a policeman

A man comforts a victim of the crash. A man who was on the train told reporters that the train started to twist, and the carriages piled up one on top of the other

Support: A citizen and a local policeman rescue an injured survivor

The incident happened as Catholic
pilgrims converged on Santiago de Compostela to celebrate a festival
honouring St James, the disciple of Jesus whose remains are said to rest
in a shrine.

The city is the main gathering point
for the faithful who make it to the end of the El Camino de Santiago
pilgrimage route that has drawn Christians since the Middle Ages.

The feast day festivities were cancelled, town hall spokeswoman Maria Pardo
told Spanish National television TVE.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said:
'I was very saddened to hear of the terrible train accident near
Santiago de Compostela in Spain last night.

'My thoughts are with all those affected and their friends and family.

Search effort: Rescue efforts were continued throughout the night following the train crash

Emergency: Injured passengers are given treatment close to the side of the track where the train derailed

Desperate effort: Emergency crews on the scene checking for survivors of the crash

'The British Embassy team in Spain are working closely with the Spanish authorities as they respond to this tragedy.

'We know that one British citizen was injured in this accident and the embassy has been providing consular support.'

Keith Barrow, associate editor of International Railway Journal, whose editorial offices are in Falmouth in Cornwall, said today: 'Spanish railways' safety record is pretty good.

'Major accidents have been extremely rare. A lot of money has been poured into the system and passenger numbers were rising before the 2008 recession, which has hit Spain particularly badly.

'There has been a big reduction in fares lately to try to get more passengers to use the railways. A number of lines have been electrified and there are plans to allow private companies to operate services.'

Mr Barrow said the train involved in the Santiago accident was a Class 730 high-speed train.

He went on: 'Investigators will want to recover the data recorder from the train's cab so they can establish just what happened.

'People in Spain will obviously be shocked by what has happened. It's the worst crash they have had in many years. But I don't think people will be put off travelling by train.'